ATLANTA — New reporting from the New York Times outlines potential upcoming efforts by Republicans at the state-level to push new anti-voter legislation in state legislative sessions across the country beginning in 2022.
Republican lawmakers in Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire have already filed anti-voter legislation before sessions have even begun. And according to the Voting Rights Lab, “In over 20 states, more than 245 [restrictive] bills put forward this year could be carried into 2022.”
As a result of the Big Lie surrounding the 2020 presidential election, the GOP launched a massive anti-voter crusade across the country earlier this year and “have enacted wide-ranging cutbacks to voting access” while using “aggressive gerrymandering to lock in the party’s statehouse power for the next decade.”
Read more about the Republican-led effort to push anti-voter legislation next legislative session:
NYT: Voting Battles of 2022 Take Shape as G.O.P. Crafts New Election Bills
By Nick Corasaniti
December 4, 2021
- “After passing 33 laws of voting limits in 19 states this year, Republicans in at least five states — Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma and New Hampshire — have filed bills before the next legislative sessions have even started that seek to restrict voting in some way, including by limiting mail voting.”
- “G.O.P. state lawmakers across the country have enacted wide-ranging cutbacks to voting access this year and have used aggressive gerrymandering to lock in the party’s statehouse power for the next decade.”
- “Many of the other bills are similar to those passed this year, which aim to limit access to mail-in voting; reduce the use of drop boxes…expand the authority of partisan poll watchers; and shift oversight of elections from independent officials and commissions to state legislatures.”
- “In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is pushing for changes to election laws that build on the major bill his party passed this year, including a special force to investigate voting crimes.”
- “In New Hampshire, Republicans are proposing to require that all ballots be counted by hand and may try to tighten residency requirements.”
- “In Georgia, a plan by Republicans in the state legislature to restructure the government of Gwinnett County would effectively undercut the voting power of people of color in an increasingly Democratic area.”
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